Hi Larry, Some things that I did that made my recipes much better were to incorporate some of the following suggestions. It is certainly possible to make really good beer with extract, specialty grains, good yeast and water. Oh ya, and using a good sanitizer too. If you are mainly interested in recipes, let me know and I would be happy to get them for you. But if you are interested in techniques, here are a few: Try to do a full wort boil. If you can boil the full 5 or 6 gallons, that is ideal. After the boil, use a chiller of some type. They are easy to make out of 3/8 copper tubing and hooked up to a garden hose. If not a tub or sink with cold water and ice will work. Don't add ice to the wort to bring the temp down to the temperature that you want to add the yeast. Hydrate your yeast at the recommended temperatures. If using dry yeast, it is a good idea to feed the yeast with a pint of your unfermented wort to get the yeast started. When adding the wort to the fermenter, aerate it. It is easy to point the siphon tubing at the side of the fermentor or just shake it. If you want to go a little crazy, bubbling pure O2 for 30 seconds works good, but not necessary. A good healthy and fermenting starter will do a good job on most batches of beer with a specific gravity of 1.060 or lower. When fermenting, keep the temps stable and in the range appropriate for the yeast. A real good technique for doing this is to get a wash tub or trashcan and put your fermentor in the middle. Add water to the tub and you can control the temperature by adding ice or a fish heater to maintain temps where you want them. Floating a thermometer in the water bath gives you the actual temperature of the fermenting beer. One of the biggest rules in brewing is keep it sanitary. After the chill, anything that comes in contact with the wort needs to be sanitary. That includes tubing, spoons, fomenters, ect. There are a few really good sanitizers available. One is Iodopher which has an iodine base. The problem with it is that it does stain things. The other good one is called StarSan by 5 Star. They are both one step sanitizers and do not need to be rinsed out. It just requires a 2 minute contact to sanitize. Of course the surface has to be clean first. I hope this is helpful. Keith
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Larry Stansifer Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Brewing Ron, I am beginning to understand what you are talking about with respect to brewing component availability and cost effectiveness. I am about 125 miles north of Las Vegas, probably the best place to go for hands on products and equipment. I also am still using a single fermentation process and mixes for the most part. Are you aware of any good recipes that will assist a willing if not terribly accomplished amiture brewer move to the next level? Salute Regards Larry Stansifer -----Original Message----- From: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com [mailto:blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ron or Susan Denis Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 7:37 AM To: blindhandyman@ <mailto:blindhandyman%40yahoogroups.com> yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Brewing I used to brew regularly but getting to shops that sell ingredients has become harder as the stores are much further away and shipping is too costly. I must admit I am a lazy brewer using prepared malt extracts and hopped malt extracts along with added hops, mostly pellitized hops. My preference is for dark ales, porters and stouts and occasionally a dark beer. I have had good luck with both a single fermentation method and a two stage fermentation approach. I generally have had excellent luck with only one batch which acquired a yeast infection turning the product into something one couldn't or at least probably shouldn't drink. rd To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio. <http://acbradio.org/handyman.html> org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio. <ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/> org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio <http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday> .org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast. <http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml> com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions >From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws- <http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/> users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail- <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: blindhandyman- <mailto:blindhandyman-help%40yahoogroups.com> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links -- BEGIN-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS ------------------------------------------------------ Teach Infowest Spam Trap if this mail (ID 86471714) is spam: Spam: https://spamtrap. <https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf> infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf 3c72023&c=s Not spam: https://spamtrap. <https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf> infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf 3c72023&c=n Forget vote: https://spamtrap. <https://spamtrap.infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf> infowest.com/canit/b.php?i=86471714&m=bdfaf 3c72023&c=f ------------------------------------------------------ END-ANTISPAM-VOTING-LINKS [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
